Home made Chickpea & Chicken curry!

Sorry about the delay in posting this one! Christmas time has been very busy for me :) So thank you for your patience!

Okay, so if your new years resolution is to sharpen up your diet, this here may well become a  Friday night LIFE SAVER!! It isn't easy giving up the foods that you love, but with a bit of cooking skill, you really don't have to! ;D

This is my Chickpea and Chicken curry. It didn't take long to make, and it is easy to double, triple or QUADRUPLE the quantities in order for you to keep enjoying this one throughout your working week :).

Ingredients (to serve one person) :

- 1/4 Onion

- 1 Small Bell pepper

- 1/4 Clove of Garlic

- TBSP Coconut oil

- TSP Curry powder of choice

- 1 Tin of chickpeas (or less if your tin is very large!)

- 1 Chicken fillet


Cooking instructions

Start by adding your coconut oil to the pan. Wait for the heat to rise and oil to melt, then add your chopped onion, chopped bell pepper, and crushed garlic clove. You need to cook this all up together until your onion turns brown. Once browned, add your diced chicken, chickpeas, and TSP of curry powder. 

The chicken will start to soak up all of the moist, so if at any point the mix gets too dry, just add a dash of water into the pan. This will also help the flavors to infuse together :).

Stir all of the ingredients up together in the pan until your chicken has cooked all the way through. If you're not sure if your chicken has cooked all the way through, take the largest chunk and chop it in half to check that it is white. Add more curry powder to taste if necessary.

Then serve and enjoy!! :D The green stuff on top is coriander. As for greens, this dish is really nice teamed with zucinni or runner beans! 

Guilt free apple crumble!

My favourite dessert is home made apple crumble! Especially at this chilly time of year ;D. Yummm!

We are very lucky to have a garden full of apple trees... so I spent last weekend picking up all the windfalls and stewing them up ready for some serious crumble cooking ;D.

Stewing apple is easy. Simply peel your apples and put them in a large pot on the stove. Leave to simmer for a couple of hours until the apple turns soft. This is what I use for the inside of my crumble. It should end up looking something like below. I like to keep a lot of lumps in mine so I turn the heat off a little earlier. It's up to you how lumpy you want your crumble! I would recommend using a small amount of apple to begin with so you can play with your stewing skills. ;D

Step 2 is simply adding the apple into individual tumblers or a big pie dish.

Step 3 is then to make the crumble topping! My crumble topping is made from crushed brazil nuts and rolled oats :). 

Step 4 - wack it all in the oven for 10-15 minutes on 180 degrees C until warmed through. Here I have teamed my crumble with 0% fat Total yoghurt and home grown blackberries! 

Absolutely DELICIOUS and best of all... it's COMPLETELY guilt free ;D. Perfect.

Let me know if you make this one yourself and tag me @hells_fitness so I can see your masterpiece!

Fat storage in the right places

Your body will crave whatever is in its blood stream. If you eat a lot of crap, your body will communicate to your brain that you want more crap! So in turn, if you eat healthy food, your body will crave healthy food.


The chemicals added to processed foods are designed to make you feel good by artificially stimulating Dopamine in your body. Dopamine is the "pleasure neurotransmitter" and tells the brain that you are experiencing something good. So you are eating food which lack your essential nutrients, but still getting a feeling of pleasure when you eat them! Tampering with your Dopamine is dangerous and is a cause of processed food addiction.


Processed food contains a lot of TRANS FATS which are heavily processed. A lot of natural fats are incredibly good for you... But trans fats are a killer. Their chemical structure has been manipulated so that when you eat trans fats, they store as fat almost instantly. Trans fats tend to store your fat around the abdomen, and also have the ability to take fat from other areas of the body and relocate them to store as fat on your abdomen!! This is why I avoid processed foods at all costs. The natural foods that I eat ensure that my fat is stored in the areas that I want them to be.... ;D. Keeping my waist the size I want it. 


Why is an hourglass figure so attractive in nature? An hourglass figure comes from eating healthy food. Healthy food means that you are a healthy individual and therefore more likely to be able to produce and raise strong offspring. It is in our nature to want to reproduce. 


Not only does a processed food addiction make it very hard for you to achieve your goal physique, it also creates an unhealthy body on the inside.
When you pack your body full of these unhealthy chemicals, you are creating an ideal environment for disease to thrive in. Cancer, heart disease, and diabetes to name but a few. This is why it saddens me to see people doing a "cake sale" in order to raise money toward cancer research. It's a vicious circle. We have to be smarter than this!


When I say "processed food" I'm not just talking pizza and cake. I'm talking food that disguises itself as being healthy, like bread, yoghurt, squash, ham, cereals, preserves, sauces, breakfast bars, some dried fruits, crumpets, scones, pies... Basically anything which was man made! Chemicals are added for production efficiency, to ensure sales, and preservation. Not for your health.


I have discovered this information through extensive research and reading. My main reference is to Phil Richards Ultimate Guide to Fat Loss. His years of experience and research on the human body is the most legit I have ever come across. Here is the link to his website where you can buy his book: 
www.philrichardsperformance.co.uk.


This information is deliberately made difficult to access due to the processed food industry being multi billion. If everyone were to realise what was really going on, there would be riots!! Impairing the health of others in order to make profit is awful, but unfortunately, the truth is not put into our education system.


You want an astonishing physique? Invest in CLEAN food! Avoid the fads and the adverts. Go against the grain and you will be the one with remarkable results. 

"Fitness FREAK!?"

As a country, we are all incredibly out of shape. This blog could go one of two ways, I could continue to rant about how our country WANTS us to be unhealthy due to the booming medical and fast food industry, or I could try and wangle into your mind and convince you to get active.

As I am in a wangling mood today I will go down the wangling route.

I’m sure that you know someone who loves to be in shape, and really cares about their health. This person is the one who refuses to eat the pack of biscuits going around the office, the person who will drink a gallon of water a day at their desk, the person who will grab their sports kit on their lunch break and head over to the local gym, the person who eats chicken breasts and green beans out of their excessive Tupperware collection, the person who doesn’t ever watch TV….

Yes. I’m sure you have a person in mind. And to anybody who works with me, you probably are thinking of me. So…. What would you call this person?

Fit Freak?

Gym Rat?

Health Fanatic?

These are just 3 examples of what I have been called in the past. Take a look at the words used… “freak”… “rat”…. “fanatic”. All 3 of those words are rather negative, but are the common phrases that people use to describe someone who is committed to a healthy lifestyle.

To me, these common names do not offend, in fact, if anything I am proud to have these names thrown my way. I am in a position now where I am so confident in what I do every day, and I know that it has incredible health benefits. Calling me a “Fit Freak” isn’t enough to make me train less and start to eat crap with my colleagues. But for some people it is.

The people mainly effected are the ones who are just starting out on their fitness journey. People who are changing their lifestyle and ultimately going against the crowd. Being called a “freak” may seem like a fleeting comment, but it will subconsciously make this person feel as though they are doing something wrong, and that their colleagues do not support them.

Looking at this a little more, there is quite a negative approach toward anybody who is trying to live a fit and healthy lifestyle. There was a website set up called www.beatphil.com. Phil is an idea of the ultimate office douche: he takes credit for other people’s ideas, and uses the word ‘synergy’…. a lot! Less obviously, he also keeps himself in shape: he does sit-ups in the office, refuses to eat biscuits (according to the website disclaimer), and (according to his spoof twitter feed https://twitter.com/PhilsFeelings ) makes all his meetings standing-only for “increased productivity and glute definition”. Yep. That guy.

Whilst Phil is a bit of a pain, the point I am making here is that the fact that Phil worries about his fitness is a contributing factor toward him being a five star arse. Again, another subconscious message being sent out that worrying about your fitness will cause you to be the office douche.

Caring about your health and fitness should be praised and encouraged in all ways. It’s high time people realised that eating out of Tupperware and exercising in your lunch hour IS NOT abnormal. With illness and obesity increasing by the year, it is so important that this stereotype is turned around into a positive rather than a negative.

The only reason other people may find it irritating is because they envy your commitment and results you get from breaking out of the comfort zone! So keep doing you!! Stick to your guns and remember no matter how much you’re made to feel as though you’re abnormal – YOU’RE NOT!

My Low Fat, Carb-less burger!

My latest and greatest invention??? The Low Fat, Carb-less burger!

Don’t get confused at this point. Carbs and Fat are BOTH essential for a healthy diet. Unhealthy carbs and fats found in processed foods such as burgers are NOT healthy.

The idea of this burger is to allow you to enjoy your favorite food and not ruin your healthy eating / calorie deficient diet! :)

SO the ingredients are as follows:

•          1x Beefsteak Tomato
•          2x LARGE mushrooms
•          1x Defrosted chicken fillet
•          Leuttuce
•          1x Apple
•          Seasoning of choice
•          A sprinkle of mature cheddar cheese & 1tsp of sauce (optional!)

How to cook:

Slice your tomato so that you have 1 big slice ready to go into your burger.

Turn your grill up HIGH! Place your Mushrooms, chicken, and tomato slice under the grill. Using the grill is quick, easy, and means there is no need to cook in any fat or oil.

Leave to cook for 10-15 minutes until chicken is cooked through. 

Then start to layer up! ;D

Mushroom

Chicken

Tomato

Lettuce

… at this point you can add a bit of cheese and a teaspoon of BBQ or Ketchup! I opted out of cheese and used my dads home made tomato chutney as a relish! :)

And there you have it! An easy way to make a guilt free burger.

NOM! x

Is Make-Up making us fat?

“Maybe she’s born with it … maybe it’s Maybelline”

There are many factors aside from junk food that are contributing factors toward weight gain. The 2 main factors which are often overlooked are hormones and chemicals.

Disruption of levels of Oestrogen, Cortisol, Insulin, and Testosterone are heavily responsible for the amount of fat that the body will store. Hormone disruption can be caused by unwanted nasty chemicals being produced in and entering the body. For example, when you live with anxiety, stress, or grief, your body can produce chemical substances - like the hormone Cortisol - that make your body more likely to store fat, especially around the waist. Unwanted chemicals are also produced by / enter the body when we eat processed foods, and also are now being found in our cosmetics, and are being absorbed into the body through our skin.

Research shows women who use make-up on a daily basis are absorbing almost 5lb of chemicals a year into their bodies.

Chemicals = Hormone disruption.

Hormone disruption = fat storage!

Hold on though…

There is a lot of debate around the effects of chemicals found in cosmetics, most of which (if you do enough research) conclude that there is no direct harm which can come from chemical absorption from cosmetics, and in fact, it is very difficult for the chemicals to be absorbed into the blood stream due to their chemical structure being too large to penetrate our skin.

If this is the case, why have cosmetics been found to be linked directly to cases of weight gain, hormone disruption, mood swings, and skin cancer?

The cosmetic industry is worth BILLIONS, and the truth is very well protected for that reason. I guess we will never know unless we all become chemists and do the research ourselves. But it is always good to be aware of the debates, and to do our own research. It would do no harm to go au naturel for a while to see if stopping using cosmetics has an effect on your fitness journey.

As one cosmetic chemist said on an online forum – “Imagine putting a piece of pizza on your skin. How much of that do you think will be absorbed?“

Another blogger has stated – “All of us have different skin types depending on our age, skin colour and environment. Even the seasons affect the ability of our skin to deal with different chemicals. Even the specific activity we’re doing can affect how chemicals penetrate our skin and how they are then further absorbed.”

Food for thought!!

I guess my advice to you guys would just to be aware of what you are putting on your skin. Chemicals in cosmetics are man-made, and therefore were never meant to be inside our body at all. The research shows that despite the huge headlines trying to scare us out of cosmetics, the science proves that the risk of absorption is low. And therefore I have concluded that this will not stop me from wearing make-up or moisturising my skin!!

Let me know what you guys' thoughts are on this! :) It makes for an interesting debate….

My abdominal journey & healthy eating motivation

Your physique is a direct consequence of what you eat, and what physical exercise you do.

A question which is commonly asked is, how do you find motivation to eat clean and train, when there is so much temptation around?

The answer is simple, because I see and feel negative changes happen when I break my rules… and for me, it’s just not worth it! I weigh up my priorities and it is as simple as that.

Nobody else but YOU can decide if you’re going to eat that muffin or decide not to train today. It all comes down to how much it really means to you.

When it comes to fitness and health, you cannot hide or cheat. When I drink alcohol my muscles ache, and I feel sluggish. When I eat fast food, spots appear on my chin the very next day. When I am dehydrated I feel tired and lethargic. This is my body’s way of telling me that I am doing something wrong; and I am not about to ignore it!

If you abuse your body for long enough, eventually your responses to poor nutrition will become what you see as “the norm”. Having those annoying spots and feeling exhausted each day may seem normal to you, and it may not seem obvious that it is a direct result of your lifestyle.

Another motivation of mine for healthy eating is KNOWLEDGE. The more knowledge I have gained about nutrition and training, the more motivated I have become to put this knowledge into action!

For example, I have seen some astonishing results in my abdominals since adapting my training and diet. I now eat a LOT MORE and train my core LESS!

And YES that is 100% true!!

I gained my knowledge on nutrition mostly through reading. I recommend the “Ultimate Fat Loss Book” by Phil Richards. And also “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Weston A Price. Both of these books have changed my outlooks on life; and I’m certain they will for you too!

It is very easy to be misled by the media! I was led to believe that carbs were bad, and that excessive cardio was the answer; but the truth couldn’t be more opposite! There should be no difference in men and women’s training or nutrition. Women ultimately need LESS food to function, but that is the only difference!

Magazines and articles all over the web are very suggestive, and are putting the wrong messages into our heads! Find the truth on nutrition through your own research, and don’t rely on anybody else!

A certified before and after:

          June 2013                                                                                  February 2014